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Friday, 8 August 2014

Please follow the link to get free access to our Commentary in Nature calling for a moratorium on new oil-sands development and transportation projects until better policies and processes are in place.

In 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government asked me
and four other economists if we agreed with its study showing huge costs for
Canada to meet its Kyoto commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2010.
We all publicly agreed, much to the chagrin of the Liberals, NDP and Greens,
who argued that Kyoto was still achievable without crashing the economy. It
wasn’t.

As economists, we knew that the Liberal government of Jean
Chrétien should have implemented effective policies right after signing Kyoto
in 1997. It takes at least a decade to significantly reduce emissions via
energy efficiency, switching to renewables, and perhaps capturing carbon
dioxide from coal plants and oil sands. Each year of delay jacks up costs.

Mr. Harper’s government knew this too. Years later, when
environment minister Peter Kent formally withdrew Canada from Kyoto, he charged
the previous Liberal government with “incompetence” for not enacting necessary
policies in time to meet their target.

Monday, 4 August 2014

During B.C.’s 2013
election campaign, at a conference of energy economists in Washington, D.C., I
spoke about how one of our politicians was promising huge benefits during the
next decades from B.C. liquefied natural gas exports to eastern Asia. These benefits
included lower income taxes, zero provincial debt, and a wealth fund for future
generations. My remarks, however, drew laughter. Later, several people
complimented my humour.

Why this reaction?
The painful reality is that my economist colleagues smirk when people
(especially politicians) assume extreme market imbalances will endure, whereas
real-world evidence consistently proves they won’t. For B.C. Premier Christy
Clark to make promises based on a continuation of today’s extreme difference
between American and eastern Asian gas prices was, to be kind, laughable.